


mend yourself home (blessed be the boys)

by paxamdays



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: A lot of swearing and italics, Alcoholism, Angst, Depression, Happy Ending, Hiatus (Fall Out Boy), Lots of metaphors that aren't really written that well, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, So much angst, Sort Of, Soul Punk, Soul Punk Era Patrick Stump, but i tried ok, drunk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-06 04:38:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15186956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paxamdays/pseuds/paxamdays
Summary: Pete receives three drunk calls from Patrick in the span of three weeks, and each one hurts more than the last. It’s 2011, and the things that used to make sense don’t anymore.





	mend yourself home (blessed be the boys)

**Author's Note:**

> the real joke is that this shit is over 6000 words long and i dedicated a week of my life to writing it. oof. it was also a real bitch to edit and took me the whole of folie a deux and like half of green day's dookie to get done.
> 
> title inspired by isn’t that something by ray toro (kind of) and the kids aren’t alright by fob.
> 
> this is kind of just a shit ton of angst, a gross overuse of italics, swears, and the word 'disaster', and my sad attempts at writing something with poetic devices thrown into the mix (which, ultimately, come off sounding highly prententious but eh). obviously I don’t own these two grown men, copyright, etc etc, idk I’m a child I don’t know how this works. 
> 
> warnings for alcoholism, mentioned suicide, depression (I mean I guess?)
> 
> edit: the timeline is a little fucked up because I didn’t realise at the time of writing this that (in reality) Patrick and Pete actually spoke for the first time since the start of the hiatus in 2012 (and there are several parts where I accidentally change the year this is set in because, you know, continuity issues, am I right?). However, as I’m too lazy to rewrite and change certain parts of this, we’re just roll with this, okay? cool.

The thing about Pete is, he knows a disaster when he sees one. He’s not exactly sure how the ability to pick one up came to be a skill of his; maybe it’s something that he’s been exposed to enough times to have developed a proper understanding and grasp of; maybe it's just because they're simply a part of him, something that courses through his veins like his own second, personal brand of blood.

 _Disaster_ is a word fitting for a car crash, or a broken heart. Ends of relationships and screaming and breakdowns over messages left on his answering machine. Shit that isn't meant to break, but does anyway, just because it can. Just because he wants it to.

Patrick is a prime example of a disaster. More like a byproduct of Pete’s doing, but a disaster nonetheless.

It's 3 a.m when he decides to peel the duvet off his body and walk around his empty apartment after half an hour of just staring at the ceiling. Insomnia is something that has always plagued him, and Pete knows this all too well, deciding that he might as well spend the likely hours to come doing something productive. Or at the very least, time consuming.

The answering machine — the source of many past disasters, mostly stemming from girls he’s met after shows and never taken a second glance at again — sits on a side table in his lounge room, next to the couch which Pete drops his body onto. He hasn't checked it for a good week; play it down to laziness, or the fear of hearing something he doesn't quite want to know about. His fingers finding their way to the grey button adjacent to a minuscule light bulb; it glows red when the automated voice creeps into the air, informing him that he has two new messages, followed by the familiar, high pitched tone.

 _“Pete.”_ The voice on the other end of line clings on to his mind, which is suddenly aflame at mention of this quiet, strained word, void of any previous formalities or greetings, just a singular syllable that's broken off at the end. _“Pete...this is you, isn't it? It had fucking better be. You've changed your number so many times before in the past that I’d fill a fucking phone book if I had ever bothered to write them down.”_

There's a sense of bitterness to it, yet it remains hushed, like it's some kind of a secret. Pete’s breathing hitches. The tone shifts considerably, and suddenly Patrick is laughing.

_“‘Course you wouldn't fucking pick up. What was I even expecting? Can't hope for a goddamn miracle, can I?”_

The words are slurred and mumbled, like tired whispers desperate to be heard. Patrick hiccups and curses under his breath, and it makes Pete’s chest hurt; two years of nothing, of empty silence and not a single conversation, not even a text between the two of them. Yet here he is now; on edge, listening to a message left by Patrick four hours ago. He still sounds the same as the last time they talked; tired and pissed off. It had become a common mixture of emotions for him, though. In the end, anyway.

_“You know, I just finished a show. A–And you’d fucking laugh, I know you would, at the amount of shit people ask me about you. It’s hilarious; two years on my own, yet my life still revolves around you, like fucking reruns of the Pete Wentz show.”_

The words remain quiet, sound like the end of a laugh. Pete’s stomach sinks. He feels the urge to say something; ask a question, say he liked his album, hell, even just say hi. But he knows there'd be no point; he'd just be talking to no one.

 _“You probably think every song’s about you. Everything’s about you, isn’t it? God, do you even miss me?”_ Patrick scoffs, adding a soft, _“Bet you fucking do.”_

Pete’s body is alight with the fire from Patrick and his damn _voice_ ; a twisted, cynical, miserable energy, and it flows under his skin along with the disaster that this situation is proving to be.

 _“I can’t...I can’t believe I’m doing this.”_ An acidic laugh, a shift of the phone. Pete feels his heart race, feeling more alive than ever. _“Jesus Christ. I almost miss you. Almost. Not quite. Not completely. Fuck, I know **they** miss you. The fans, I mean.”_ And he sounds disconsolate, so much so that it momentarily sends Pete’s mind back to when he was younger and Patrick was still a teenager, young and impressionable, who lived and breathed music. 2003, in a van driving steadily along a road all the way to god knows where, arm looped over the shoulders of the person that meant everything to him. And for a brief couple of seconds, he’s not living vicariously through a memory; it’s something more real.

 _“I think…I think that you ruined me.”_ Patrick’s voice grips Pete tightly and drags him back to reality, to now, where he’s up at some ungodly hour in the morning, sitting alone on the couch, listening to the voice of his broken best friend on his answering machine. _"I–I think that you’ve just– just made me... **nothing** without you. And...fuck, Pete, I don’t think– I don’t think I like myself anymore. I don't think **anyone** likes me anymore.”_

There’s yelling in the background — someone screaming out about how Patrick needs to get his ass back out on stage, people are lining up to ask questions and get autographs. Patrick laughs, and it’s insincere. Pete holds his breath, and he only lets go a few seconds later when the voices on the other end suddenly disappear and he’s left with the high pitched sound of the dial tone.

Pete stares at the wall. Another voice quickly fills the room, and for a split second, he thinks it’s Patrick again. But it’s only the answering machine notifying him that he has one new message. He forces himself to sit up from the couch and walk back to his bedroom as his mother’s voice asks him to _call soon, it’s been a while, we miss you._

And it leaves a bad taste in his mouth. Everyone’s fucking missing him tonight.

•

When Patrick’s album was released, Pete was in New York for Gabe’s birthday.

He’d been driving to the restaurant when the advertisement came onto the radio, and the next thing he knew, he was calling Gabe, telling him he was going to be late, sorry, and taking a detour to the nearest record shop. Pete isn’t even sure why he had decided to get a physical copy of it. He rarely uses his stereo anymore, and it’d be easier and more convenient if he had just downloaded the album onto his phone (which he _did_ end up doing) rather than buy a CD. He hasn’t even listened to any of the songs yet; it doesn’t feel right, almost dishonest in a way, to listen to Patrick’s _own_ music that they didn’t make together, to hear him sing his _own_ words, not Pete’s.

At three twenty-two — seventeen minutes after listening to the message — Pete decides that there’s no point in trying to sleep; the Disaster is still alive and still present in the air. It crackles like electricity, prodding constantly into his skin like slender fingers made of pure, unadulterated energy. He makes his way silently back to the lounge room, slips the CD into the stereo (the case was still untouched, wrapped in shiny plastic), and presses play, sitting cross legged on the floor in front of the cabinet.

He makes it past the first four songs and half way through _The “I” in Lie_ before he presses eject and starts crying.

The fucking song isn't even about him, yet it still hurts, god, it stings. It strikes a dissonant chord within him, shattering his bones, liquefying his organs until his body feels overwhelmed with guilt and too many emotions for a thirty-two year old to have without it being considered pathetic. Pete thinks about Patrick, the way he had said _You’ve just made me nothing without you._  But this just exemplifies the complete opposite. This is _him;_ there's not a single thing even remotely referencing the chubby, dorky 16 year old from over a decade ago whom Pete had promised everything and more to. This is an entirely different person, not the lead singer of Fall Out Boy, not Pete Wentz’s partner in crime. This is _Patrick_. This is Patrick. Fucking. Stump.

If anything, Pete’s the one who is nothing without the other. He’s never been so empty and so fucking hollow and _god,_ he needs Patrick. He needs him like how dark needs light to prevent it from turning into a consuming, endless abyss, like how the earth needs the sun to remain alive.

But no angsty, poetic bullshit can end the hiatus and bring Patrick back to him, sober and devoid of a burning hatred and spite towards Pete for everything that he's done. And fuck, that just gets to him the most; the fact that all of the things to go wrong between them have been _his_ fault.

Pete feels a burning sensation cling tight to his skin as Patrick’s voice continues to tell him about how much of a _cheat, cheat, cheat_ he is.

•

Pete knows fully well that he's not an entirely stable person — mentally and emotionally speaking. He’s fragile, made from glass and disasters and prescription medicine and battered Moleskine journals filled to the brim with poetry and thoughts that have been pushed out of his overcrowded mind and need to find a home on paper. He knows that he’s not going to be able to handle this, that this will result in some sort of a breakdown. He has those too much; little episodes and panic attacks over things which shouldn't hurt so much. 

But he can't help it; his fingers are already typing away at the keyboard and he's scrolling his mouse until the cursor lands on the first search result.

The video is called _‘Bad Side of 25 (Live in Philadelphia, 15/6/2011)’._ The quality is decent, along with the audio, but it's good enough for him to see every part of his body.

He is all angles and edges, joints and bones; the suit tugs to some parts of his body, hangs off others. It makes him look taller, it really does, the lack of weight around his stomach and limbs. His cheekbones look sharp enough to cut through granite, his skin glistening with sweat. He dances in a weird way, but there’s a certain charm to it that prevents it from being awkward. The crowd obviously adores everything he does; they don’t stop screaming throughout the song.

Pete thinks about teenage Patrick, head full of messy strawberry blonde hair (now it's bleached, styled with gel and sweat) and cheeks always tinged the slightest shade of pink. He thinks about pre-2009 Patrick with glasses and a shit fashion sense and an affiliation with Bowie. How that incarnation of Patrick Stump is virtually dead, having since been replaced with a new, suave, tailored suit-wearing, skinny version of himself. Patrick 2.0. Patrick in the midst of a Disaster.

It drives him insane. It drives him so fucking insane to see him so full of passion and will and _life._ And it burns him up from the inside out, like fire eating the paper of a cigarette, consuming him until he feels numb. Pete watches every move he makes — every dance, every step, every facial expression. The tugs at his lips, the hands (he somehow manages to pull off fingerless gloves) twitching when he isn’t playing his guitar. He hears a female voice scream out _"I want to have your babies",_ and he sees Patrick’s face turn scarlet and the smile become sheepish and small.

Pete slams his laptop shut to stop himself from exploding.

•

He’s sitting in his lounge room when Patrick calls again. It’s been three days since the last one. He doesn’t pick up. He can’t.

Within a millisecond of hearing the sharp dial tone, he’s glued to his couch, the magazine in his hands crumpled under the increasingly tightening grasp of his fingers. The tone lasts a second, and disappears. Pete doesn’t breathe.

There's only deep inhales and heavy exhales, tired sounds and small whimpers from someone who seems too broken and dejected for words. Pete doesn’t need to hear much to know that it’s Patrick. Eight years of working together, being basically inseparable, of sleeping side by side in the van, tour buses and beds of hotel rooms has left every little sound ever made by him burnt into his mind, like a permanent stain that could never be washed out, even if he tried to.

Patrick lets a breath out. Pete stays quiet.

 _“Do you...do you remember when we were still in the van, and you fucked up the AC?”_ He's quiet. Sombre and soft. _“You— I don't fucking know what you did, honestly. You probably tried to drunkenly shove a CD into the vent. But it never worked again because none of us could fix it. We should've just gotten it replaced.”_

He hiccups into the receiver. It's silent for a moment, until Patrick’s voice comes back, cracking on certain words.

_“But we didn't. We didn't and— and it was cold, always so fucking cold in winter, because we couldn't close the windows properly either. And in the summer we’d just die.”_

Pete feels his chest tighten. By now the magazine is on the floor and he's sitting in front of the answering machine, cross-legged on the carpet, looking up at it like it's a god; a false idol, something more worthy of worship than anything else he could ever think of.

_“And in winter, you'd make Andy drive, or Joe, because you were suddenly always in the back with me. You were always right there— we were practically connected at the hip. You'd put two blankets over our legs, but you always made sure to pull the bottom one up higher so it covered my chest. And I asked you about it once, why you were suddenly there, why you were suddenly smothering me with yourself and with blankets. And— and do you remember what you said to me?”_

Patrick pauses, as if recollecting his thoughts. Pete edges closer to the side table.

_“Y–You said that you didn't want me to get cold. That you fucked up when you broke the AC, and you were so, so sorry, and this was your way of trying to fix it. By making sure that I didn't freeze.”_

The mumbles fade away into the ether, leaving behind a thick silence and a small, almost unnerving laugh from Patrick. Pete thinks of late nights in the van and stolen kisses hidden underneath aforementioned blankets. He thinks of whispers spoken into the necks of past lovers — and the only one who ever mattered, breathing softly through the phone, feeling as though he were really here. As if he were really right beside him.

 _“I hate this.”_ Patrick murmurs, goosebumps appearing on Pete’s skin. _“I think— I don’t know. I hate this. I hate you. I hate missing you. I fucking hate everything.”_

He lets out another laugh — sharp, harsh and morose. It sounds wrong coming from him.

_“God, I’m starting to sound like you. Well, 2000s you, anyway. I don’t think I know enough about you anymore to make a correct assumption on what you act like.”_

That hurts more than Pete’s willing to admit. He holds his knees tight to his chest, burrowing his head with his face down, hoping that he won’t notice the tears on skin.

 _“What’s new with you, anyway?”_ Patrick sounds spiteful. _“I hear you’ve got a kid. What is it, Brooklyn? Brayden? I don’t know. I’ve seen pictures of him, mostly from TMZ. Fucking trash excuse for a media outlet.”_

Patrick sighs, tries to whisper something else, but it comes out too loud and broken off around the edges. _“He’s cute. He’s got Ashlee’s hair. The colour, I mean. Those curls are all yours.”_

And he hiccups a few times, the line turning partially to static and cracking so slightly. Pete keeps his head down.

_“I miss those too.”_

The line goes dead.

•

Two weeks go by, and he doesn’t get another call. Two long weeks of agony crawl on at an excruciatingly slow pace, and Pete sometimes finds himself wondering if he’s ever going to get a call back, if the two previous ones were just the results of too much alcohol (whiskey, more like; Patrick’s downfall always came in a bottle of Jack Daniels) and a multitude of thoughts that were just so desperate to break through the floodgates and pour out of his answering machine.

But then it comes, and it comes unexpectedly, the way most disasters do. Completely catches him off guard, yet it doesn't stop him from pulling the phone off the answering machine and shoving it against the side of his face.

Pete doesn’t think of the consequences which are to come from him picking up this time; he doesn’t think he really cares. He waits eagerly for any signs of life to emerge from the other end; he has to really hear Patrick this time. He needs to.

Steady breathing, interrupted by hiccups every few seconds. Patrick’s breathing.

 _“You picked up”,_ he mumbles in distaste. _“God fucking damn, it only takes three tries.”_

Pete doesn’t dare to respond. He presses the phone harder against his ear, the dopamine and placidity in his system dissolving into a white hot fire, coursing on the underside of his flesh, making his whole body tingle. He takes notice of Patrick’s tone, how it’s changed from the last call. Drunk Patrick Stump is one thing — angry drunk him is an entirely different being whom Pete didn’t want to have to listen to tonight.

_“You know, I just— I just think it’s fucking **hilarious** how things have turned out for us. For you, it’s Pete Wentz: musician, socialite, voice of a generation of outcasts and misfits. The guy on the front cover of every damn tabloid with your arm wrapped around some slut. A fucking sex symbol. And what am I?”_

Patrick laughs hard at his own question. It stings, how Patrick’s laugh is still so sweet and beautiful, even when laced with alcohol. Even in a situation like this.

_“I’m the fucker with a half decent voice and a guitar. The ugly face speaking your words. I’m never not going to be the fucking ‘guy from Fall Out Boy’. I’m never going to be anything not relating to the image you made me into. And I— you know what, fuck you. Fucking go to hell, hang yourself with your fucking bass strap for all I fucking care. Everything is your fucking fault.”_

He coats _'your fucking fault'_  in the kind of malice that Pete has only ever read about in books, heard in songs, seen in movies. The sort of anger that needs so much fire behind it to make it meaningful. He’s barely comprehensible — he speaks in slurs, words melting into each other and it takes a moment for Pete’s mind to really take into account what he’s saying, to take a hold of the bitter twist tingeing his tone, and place some substance into the things he’s saying. But when he understands, when the misery-lined sentences begin to make sense...Pete holds the phone tighter.

“ _Do what you couldn’t do in that fucking car park and get the hell out of my life.”_

The words are considerably low in terms of volume, almost hushed and no longer having as much of a punch as they did before. It doesn’t stop Pete from hanging up and sinking to the floor.

•

 _Disaster_ is a word that seems synonymous with _Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III_ at the moment. Disaster is everything about him and more, every artery and capillary, every vein and cell. Disaster is crying himself to sleep every night onwards — from the call, from the start of the hiatus, who fucking knows — and not having the strength to get out of bed in the morning. It’s missing his friends, the band, fucking Patrick ( _him,_ of all things). It’s something that digs down, burrowing itself into his skin like a parasite, sucking the life right out of him and replacing it with madness and paranoia and so much hopelessness until he’s not even a person anymore; he’s a goddamn walking tragedy.

Disaster is a word fitting for a car crash, or a broken heart. Ends of relationships and screaming and breakdowns over calls he stupidly decides to pick up when he knows they won't end well. Shit that isn't meant to break, but does anyway, just because it can. Just because Patrick has enough spitfire and rounds of ammunition to hit him in all the critical places. 

Disaster has become synonymous with him.

•

There’s something about him that has always driven Pete insane.

When it got cold in previous years, in sub-zero Januaries that were never free of chill and frost, he’d wear this bulky grey jacket, almost like a parka, which made his upper body look bigger than his lower, making him look disproportionate. It had little black feathers on the inside lining that used to come loose and fall off, and sometimes Pete would find a trail of them leading up to wherever Patrick was. And when he’d take off the jacket and throw it away, there’d be feathers stuck to his back, and he wouldn't even try to get them off. He'd walk around like that, all day, fucking little dark wisps on his clothes. It’d show no significance if it weren’t for the fact that Patrick _always_ wore the same jacket. He had had it for years and wore it every single time it got cold; in the van, in the studio, at informal events. From a teenager all the way up to 2008. The last time Pete saw him with it, he was being subjected to Patrick’s abuse; the mixing on a song didn't right or something else stupid, and that was when Patrick had slapped him on the cheek and stormed out of his house, leaving behind misery and tension and his jacket on the back of Pete’s chair.

He never came back for it. Pete keeps it hanging up in his closet. It’s been sitting there, untouched, for about three years, along with other mementos and memories he's tried to forget.

Maybe that’s what drove him insane; the fucking stupid attachment Patrick had with an equally stupid jacket. Maybe Pete loved the way he always managed to keep a hold of little things and treasure them like they were something valuable and worthy of keeping. Maybe it was because he always laughed too much, loudly, at every fucking little thing. Maybe it was because he was a sad story, and Pete wanted to tear the sadness away from his limbs but never could.

Maybe it was because Patrick never started out as a disaster. He wasn’t a fuck up like Pete was; he wasn't malleable, hadn’t been molded into something new and artificial like him. Pete succumbed to fame. He had longed to touch the sun and keep it hidden away in his pocket. He saw light and gold and needed it, all to himself. And maybe that’s how he lost everything in the end.

Patrick had told him once, in a drunken stupor in their van at some ungodly hour in the morning, that he was a heartbreaker. He was seventeen, shy, and would have never had the confidence to say shit like that about himself, even as joke. Of course, it could have been the Blue Label Johnnie Walker speaking for him; he couldn’t legally drink, but the law could be damned for all he cared.

 _“I’m a heartbreaker, you know.”_ Drunk, giddy Patrick’s voice fills his head. _“I break hearts.”_

 _“Is that so?”_ Pete reply sounds as tired in his head as he remembers it.

_“Mm hm. But I’d never break yours. I love you too much. I think that makes me a bit selfish. But that’s okay. I’m okay with my selfish love.”_

Heartbreaker Patrick seems like an entirely different being to the man currently banging on his door and messily screaming out Pete’s name.

When he opens the door — it's only somewhat concerning that he doesn't hesitate to do so, despite the fact that it's two in the fucking morning and he's too tired and not in the right mood to have his drunk ~~best friend~~ former band mate throw some (expected) verbal abuse at him — Patrick hiccups and laughs in a mocking sort of way. The first things Pete notices (other than the fact that he's obviously shitfaced — he can fucking smell the Grey Goose on his collar) are the dark rings around his eyes, the slightly swollen lips, his disheveled (bleached) hair and clothes, how fucking _skinny_ he is. Pete wouldn't know who the hell this is if it weren't for the face; it's as if the old Patrick was murdered and replaced by an altered version of himself with a sharp tailor suit and a bottle of peroxide.

“Well whoop-dee-fucking-doo”, Patrick says after a long and heavy silence, leaving on the doorframe. “Look who fucking finally opened the door.”

He's so small and fragile looking, like Pete could break him in a heartbeat. More so than he already has.

“What, surprised?” Patrick lulls his head and smiles cruelly. “Lost for words? Isn't that funny, the poet unable to speak. How fucking ironic.”

Patrick forces out a laugh. It makes Pete cringe.

The Patrick standing in front of him looks scared. Concealed by a drunken husk and borderline aggressive behaviour and the smell of too much vodka is the kid he met when he was twenty one; and he's scared, so fucking scared, but trying so hard not to show it. His eyes are half lidded, partially hiding away those blue irises that are no longer electrifying, able to pierce souls and simultaneously destroy and mend hearts. They're dull and truly show the desperate and lonely stranger Patrick has become.

God damn. Patrick, always the light in an otherwise bleak and empty world. Always making everything seem flat and obsolete. Always trying to fix him. Always trying to be the best that he could be. Ruining everything he could touch in the most beautiful way without even knowing it. Until Pete had destroyed him.

He wants to say something, let the first sentence he's spoken to Patrick in forever be something meaningful. God, there's so many things. Like, _I listened to your album. I loved it. I'm sorry._ Or, _I like the way you dance on stage, I've watched you in videos. I'm sorry._ Hell, even, _I did this to you_. _I ruined you, unravelled you, tore you apart, limb from limb, with my bare hands, because I can't hold onto something without letting it slip through my fingers and obliterating every last piece. I'm. Fucking. Sorry._

“You’ve lost weight.” The words come out of Pete in a dumb fashion, and he mentally backhands himself for letting it happen this way. _Don't fuck it up_ is one of his many philosophies in life. He's just broken it.

Patrick rolls his eyes. “Three years and _that’s_ the first thing you say to me. Pete fucking Wentz, everyone, still as fucking superficial as ever.”

“I didn't mean it like that.” He really didn't, but he says the follow up sentence too quickly for it to be considered as truthful. “I mean...you look good, Patrick.”

That's not exactly a lie; it’s the completely wrecked look that he's sporting which makes Pete’s chest tighten — he's always been a sucker for Patrick in an undressed-to-impress sort of style, and he's certainly sporting the appropriate attire now; untucked white shirt with some of the buttons undone, suit pants, black shoes with untied laces. Pink cheeks, a fucking hickey plastered to the side of his neck, slightly swollen lips and eyes. Morning after playboy hair. It makes him look kind of hot, and Pete really hates himself for thinking that now of all times.

But he's also very thin and very pale. He's too small, too much of the embodiment of everything Pete glorified in their band days. It's a wrong look on Patrick of all people, and Pete wishes that he could just close his eyes and it would all go away.

“Yeah, well”, Patrick slurs, looking down. “The whole 'fat and unattractive' thing may have been fine in a band where I could hide behind lights and your stupid attachment to the cameras and the media, but it doesn't really work the same way when you're on your own.”

“You weren't fat. You're not ugly.”

Patrick scoffs. “Fuck off. I didn't come here looking for your goddamn sympathy.”

“Then what did you come for?”

There's no words exchanged between them for a moment. Patrick parts his lips.

“I don't know”, he whispers, suddenly quiet. Something wild flashes in his eyes and tugs at his lips. “I think...I think that this is a goodbye.”

“A what?”

Patrick nods slowly, thoughtfully. “Goodbye. Goodbye and...I don't know. I don't know if I should say sorry. I hate you, I fucking hate your guts with an undying passion. But...fuck, I don't know, Pete. I haven't seen you forever, I don't even know why I even bothered coming here. And— Christ, don't make me do this.”

He smiles weakly, stained, broken. Like something old and previously hidden away that's been reinvented and brought back to life, yet still fails to work properly. "I guess now you can hate me as much as you hate yourself; I've kind of just ended up like you anyway, just a more pathetic, sadder version. We're both a little fucked, aren't we?"

Pete wants to tell him that he could never hate him. Patrick's got tears in his eyes, a cut on his cheek. It makes Pete's heart race.

“Patrick, what are you doing?” _What are you going to do?_

Patrick tries to hold it, the smile, but it evaporates as he sniffles. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what I said about you. Everything I said about you. You— you know. I didn't mean it. I don’t want you to die, and I shouldn’t— I shouldn’t have brought up Best Buy. I’m sorry.”

His words are more than slurred now; they're quick paced and crash into each other, in a way that makes Pete recall his own broken down speech as he spoke through the phone to his manager, all those years ago, in his shitty Toyota with medication in his system.

“Patrick, _Patrick,_ Jesus Christ, don't tell me you did what I think you did, don't you fucking dare.” Pete can feel his lungs burn, desperate for air. Drugs and alcohol on their own are bad enough; mixed together is a death sentence.

Patrick doesn't respond, not straight away. Pete practically screams, “Patrick fucking _Stump_ —”

“I didn't! At least— no, I didn't.”

He looks off his goddamn face. The pink in his skin turns to a deep, rouge hue, like blood, under the artificial glow of the light bulb above them.

“What the _fuck_ ”, Pete snaps, exploding. “Do you mean you didn't fucking—”

“I'm going to, I'm fucking going to, Pete!”

Silence creeps into the atmosphere, wrapping a hand around Pete's throat and laughing in his face at the way he chokes. He feels his windpipes disintegrate as Patrick’s eyes turn glassy.

“Patrick—”

Patrick lets out a loud, pained sob and collapses into Pete’s arms.

He shakes violently, as if possessed by a cruel and malevolent force, body racking with a kind of energy Pete’s never seen before. He lets a out a string of grief-stricken cries and hiccups, tears sliding down his cheeks and onto Pete’s skin. Pete holds him tighter.

“I–I just want”, Patrick chokes. “I just want to die, Pete. I'm so, so fucking sick of all of this. I'm a fucking failure, everyone hates me, people come to my shows just to boo me. Just to tell me I'm nothing without the band, without you. F–fuck, I can't, I just—”

His nails dig into Pete’s arms. Pete pushes his head into the crook of his neck.

“Just let me die, Pete. Please just let me die.”

He cries even harder. And it makes Pete want to cry too, because this is _Patrick,_ his ~~band mate~~ best friend, his muse, the fucking love of his life. This is too much, and Pete can't handle this.

But he does. He does because he has to. For him.

“No, you're not. You're fucking not.” Pete buries his face deeper into his neck, trying to push everything out that isn't the two of them. “You’re not going to die, because I won't let you. You've got too much to do. You've got too much to live for. You're not done, you're not done because people say you are. You're fucking—”

He wants to say _beautiful. Smart. Talented. Caring._

_Perfect._

He doesn't. The appropriate word remains hidden under his tongue, reluctant to come out.

“You're the only one of you there is. And I'm not letting you die because people can't fucking appreciate that.”

He can feel Patrick’s heartbeat, slow and steady, pulsing from within his rib cage and softly thumping against his chest. He wishes that he could rip away everything little misfortune and bad thought. He wishes he could do something.

But he can't. He can't really do much. So he holds Patrick tighter and pretends for a second that he's okay — that they're okay.

Patrick hiccups quietly. “I want to go home.”

Pete doesn't know what home is for Patrick; he knows what it means for him, though. “It's late, Patrick. Sleep here tonight. Please. I'll drive you home tomorrow.”

Patrick doesn't reply; Pete takes him to the spare bedroom. He crumbles onto the mattress, on top of the quilt, already asleep. Pete places a glass of water and pack of Ibuprofen on the side table and leaves. He goes into his own room and opens the closet, feeling the remnants of a disaster, previously alive and wreaking havoc on all of its surroundings, subside under his skin, crackling for the last time and fizzling out.

•

Patrick wakes up with a bulky grey jacket, almost like a parka, sprawled across his back.

The pounding headache tells him he did something really fucking stupid last night, but he can't remember what. He sits up slowly, not exactly knowing right away where the hell he is but soon enough, he's downing two tablets with some water. The room he's in smells like coffee and air freshener and Calvin Klein — it all mixes together, yet manages to not be overbearing or pungent, instead giving Patrick a sense of homeliness and nostalgia and something he can't exactly put his finger on.

He can hear noises coming from outside of the room — the distant soap–opera related banter emitting from a TV, a microwave, a dog panting. He slides off the bed, slipping the parka on, feels a sense of familiarity wash over him. He remembers this; he just doesn't know how.

Patrick walks out of the room and down a hallway. The jacket hangs loosely off his body and it makes him feel so small. He traces his hands over the inside lining, and its soft in a light and airy sort of way. He knows this, goddamn it, it's right in front of him. It's pining in the back of his head, trying to knock down a wall and scream out the answer like it's an epiphany. Like it's so desperate to come out.

He's greeted to a kitchen with a shirtless figure leaning forward with their back turned to him. The person mutters _'fucking shit'_  at something he can't see. A dog walks around the room, before seeing Patrick and locking its eyes on him, coming over and nuzzling itself against his leg. Patrick looks down and feels his face soften, his heart rate turning slow at sight of the dog — Hemingway, he remembers, an English bulldog — as one of his hands moves down past the collar and over the coarse fur, moving around in slow circles.

He smiles briefly, looks back up. And continues, unblinking, unmoving, his eyes remaining solely focused on this mystery figure. He hears an annoyed voice say _'Hemingway, where the fuck did you go',_ and his breathing hitches.

Patrick stares at the skin littered in a plethora of tattoos, blacks and colours, faded and lively. He eyes the crown of thorns coming down over their shoulders and inbetween their shoulder blades, over lapping a heart with the words _CRASH AND BURN_ on top. He sees the earth, inked in green, on the lower part of their back. Their skin is tan, the kind he used to love to wake up to every morning, the kind that was never void of bruises and scars and tender kisses that he used to leave behind whenever he could. They run a hand through their dark, dark hair, making Patrick think back to when those fingers were his own, tangled in a mess of locks, and, whether straight or naturally curly, he could find himself getting lost in them forever, a mess of soft _I love you’s_ tumbling out of his mouth and crashing onto the other’s lips like they were always meant to be there. Like it was home.

Pete turns around, and immediately looks taken aback, seemingly surprised to see him there. He stares at Patrick, blinking slowly, and then down to the dog panting contently. Then to the trail of small, black feathers leading down the hallway and up to his feet. His eyes — soft mocha, burning like always — trace his body, like they’ve done so a million times before. His lips curl upwards into a smile.

Patrick wraps his arms around his stomach, squeezing lightly, like it's something therapeutic, like it'll keep him grounded. But he lets go when he sees those lips, his lifeline, perhaps the thing he's missed the most in those three long years. He puts his own to use, and smiles back.


End file.
